All things freshwater: news, analysis, humor, reviews, and commentary from Michael E. 'Aquadoc' Campana, hydrogeologist, hydrophilanthropist, Professor of Hydrogeology and Water Resources Management in the Geography Program of the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS) at Oregon State University and Emeritus Professor of Hydrogeology at the University of New Mexico. He is Past President of the American Water Resources Association (AWRA), Past Chair of the Scientists & Engineers Division of the National Ground Water Association (NGWA), Past President of the nonprofit NGWA Foundation and President and Founder the nonprofit Ann Campana Judge Foundation, an organization involved with WaSH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) in Central America. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Global Water Partnership (GWP). CYA statement: with the exception of guest posts, the opinions expressed herein are solely those of Michael E. Campana and not those of CEOAS, Oregon State University, ACJF, AWRA, NGWA, GWP, my spouse Mary Frances, or any other person or organization.

Texas Agriculture Law BlogDon't let the name fool you - there are lots of water issues in agriculture and Tiffany Dowell of Texas A&M University does a fabulous job with this important Internet resource. Give it a read - I do every day!

The Way of WaterDr. Jennifer Veilleux records her fieldwork, research, and thoughts about water resources development and management, indigenous rights, ethics, and a host of other issues.

Thirsty in SuburbiaGayle Leonard documents things from the world of water that make us smile: particularly funny, amusing and weird items on bottled water, water towers, water marketing, recycling, the art-water nexus and working.

This Day in Water HistoryMichael J. 'Mike' McGuire, engineer extraordinaire, NAE member, and author of 'The Chlorine Revolution', blogs about historical happenings in the fields of drinking water and wastewater keyed to calendar dates.

Watershed Moments: Thoughts from the HydrosphereFrom Sarah Boon - rediscovering her writing and editing roots after 13 years, primarily as an environmental scientist. Her writing centres around creative non-fiction, specifically memoir and nature writing. The landscapes of western Canada are her main inspiration.

WaterWiredAll things freshwater: news, comment, publications and analysis from hydrogeologist Michael E. Campana, Professor at Oregon State University and Technical Director of the AWRA.

Saturday, 23 May 2020

Report: 'Hydrology of the Transboundary Drin River Basin' - Water Management, Collaboration and Cooperation

While searching for material on the Drin River Basinfor one of my classes I stumbled across this brief report by Elisabeta Poci for one of Dr. David Maidment's classes (GIS in Water Resources) at the University of Texas at Austin in December 2011.

Ministers and High-level representatives of the five Riparians endorse the Strategic Action Programme (SAP) for the Drin River Basin in South East Europe.

High level representatives from the five Riparians virtually signed a joint statement today, thus endorsing the Strategic Action Programme (SAP) for the sustainable management of the Extended Drin Basin, directly benefiting its 1.6 million inhabitants. Shared among Albania, Greece, Kosovo*, Montenegro and North Macedonia (the five ‘Riparians’), the Drin River Basin provides water resources for drinking, energy, fishing and agriculture, biodiversity, tourism and industry. Read more here.

This endorsement confirms the political will among the five Riparians to work across borders and sends a strong message that improved water resources management, which also yields benefits for public health and livelihoods, remains a priority and will continue to be pursued at the transboundary level, in spite of current difficulties associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The current crisis underscores the vital importance of water for hygiene in the region and globally.

Introduction and BackgroundThe Drin River Basin is located in the Western Balkans and it is shared between Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro.

The total catchment area of the basin is around 19,600 km2 and including Black Drin which drains from Lake Ohrid and flows up north until it meets White Drin and flow together as Drin until they meet the Buna River and discharge finally to Adriatic Sea. The basin includes also three trans-boundary lakes which are the Shkodra Lake, Ohrid Lake and Prespa Lakes (Large and Small Prespa). The Prespa Lakes are shared between Albania, Macedonia and Greece and I will show later the reason whyI haven’t included them in my analysis.

My motivation for studying the Drin River Basin is related to the fact that the basin is very important for the region in terms of economy and it has many unique natural resources.

Besides these natural values, the Drin Basin is important to the economy of countries sharing it where the main users of water are agriculture, energy, water supply and sanitation, mining and industry, environment, fisheries, tourism, and transport (Trans-Boundary Waters and Integrated Water Resource Management in the Western Balkans Region, 2007). But more specifically, the Drini River is extremely important to the Albanian economy because of the electricity production. The Drin is the longest and largest river in Albania and the damns constructed along its way in the Albanian territory, produce hydropower contributing to around 90% of the total electric capacity in the country.

Another characteristic of the basin, is related to the hydraulic complex Drin River-Buna River- Shkodra Lake. Meeting of the Drin River with Buna only 1.5 km after Buna has left Shkodra Lake inhibits the free drainage of Buna from the lake and in many times creates a flow in the opposite direction for Buna.

Being able to calculate the drainage area of each of the countries along with estimating the potential volume for Run off (by using precipitation data) is important to make an analysis of how much each country is contributing to the watershed. Using the precipitation data for an interval of years allows us to make comparisons between different years related to the run off volume calculated for each country through the time period specified.

However, as I will show later in my report, the poor quality of data and in the worst cases the lack of them, made this a very challenging task for me.

Here are the conclusions reached by Ms. Poci:

ConclusionsEven though because of the above reasons related to my data I was not able to make a full analysis of Run Off for the each of the four countries, based on my experience with this project, I have made some reflections and I am presenting them in the form of conclusions to my work.

Since data acquisition is the first step in starting to work with GIS, having a good source of data is important. It is not enough to just get the data but they should be reliable as well since data quality will significantly affect the quality of the results. In that regard, they should be put in a format that can be used in GIS, and provide sufficient information for the user such as the Coordinate System used.

The local data are always more reliable than those found on Global Databases, however they should be shared on Global Databases (when national Databases do not exist) and be updated on a regular basis. Along with that, building of National Geodatabases should become a must for each country as the only way to be able to assess its own resources, update them, and make the analysis and decision making process easier, faster and better.

In terms of projection, it is important when considering a study area spread in more than just one country, to choose the right projection. Again, projection will affect the results of the work at the end.

Efficient management of the Drin River Basin requires cooperation on a regional level, where each country takes the responsibility to improve the management and water quality in its own catchment, while considering the impact of their discharges to the other countries. This is specifically crucial to Albania because of its downstream location. On a political level, this regional cooperation is important to the countries since as they are preparing their way to the European Union they way have to comply with EU Standards and Water Framework Directives.

The Drin River Basin faces several technical and management issues today related to upstream discharges of untreated wastewater and waste disposal, overuse of Water Resources and Biodiversity threatening, illegal constructions at coastal areas, flooding, etc (Trans-Boundary Waters and Integrated Water Resource Management in the Western Balkans Region, 2007). Identifying the potential of GIS in tackling of these issues, it motivates me to focus my work in the future on studying the Drin Basin through making use of GIS.

Good technical work, considering the paucity of data.

Let's hope the cooperation sticks!

Brings back memories of my time working with the South Caucasus water issues.

Enjoy!

"Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon (via @smerconish)

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